Rock Hudson - Actors and Actresses

Nationality:
American.
Born:
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois, 17 November 1925.
Education:
Attended New Trier High School, Winnetka.
Military Service:
Served in U.S. Navy in Philippines, 1944–46.
Family:
Married Phyllis Gates 1955 (divorced 1958).
Career:
1948—personal contract with Raoul Walsh, and film debut in
Fighter Squadron
; 1949—contract with Universal; studied acting with Sophie
Rosenstein; 1956—founded first production company 7 Pictures;
1971—series pilot film
Once Upon a Dead Man
led to long-running TV series
McMillan and Wife
, 1971–76, and
McMillan
, 1976–77; 1973—stage debut in
I Do! I Do!
; 1976—toured with
John Brown's Body
; 1978—in TV mini-series
Wheels
, and
The Martian

Rock Hudson with Elizabeth Taylor in
Giant

Chronicles
, in TV series
The Devlin Connection
, 1982, and
Dynasty
, 1984–85; 1985—announcement of his having AIDS focused
national attention on the disease.
Died:
Of AIDS, in Beverly Hills, California, 2 October 1985.

Davidson, Casey, "AIDS Claims Its First Star: A Sad and Startled
Nation Said Goodbye to Rock Hudson 10 Years Ago," in
Entertainment Weekly
, 29 September 1995.

On HUDSON: film—

Rock Hudson
, television movie, directed by John Nicolella.

* * *

Rock Hudson was an actor who never quite found his niche in Hollywood.
Basically a competent performer, and quite a fine one when directed well,
Hudson appeared in more than his share of bad movies. He began his film
career with almost no training when he appeared in Raoul Walsh's
Fighter Squadron
. Legend has it that 38 takes were required for him to deliver his one
line adequately. Hudson literally learned his craft on the job, a luxury
not afforded to actors since the demise of the studio system. Although he
started at Warner Brothers he moved to Paramount for his next film,
William Castle's
Undertow
. Then he appeared in Anthony Mann's
Winchester '73
, Frederick de Cordova's
The Desert Hawk
, Joseph Pevney's
Air Cadet
, and Mark Robson's
Bright Victory
.

Hudson's parts grew longer in a series of adventure films made
during Hollywood's last great production splurge: Mann's
Bend of the River
, Sidney Salkow's
Scarlet Angel
, Douglas Sirk's
Has Anybody Seen My Gal?
, Budd Boetticher's
Horizons West
and
Seminole
, and Walsh's
Sea Devils
and
Gun Fury
. In the mid-1950s Sirk, the most influential director in Hudson's
career, used him perceptively in a number of better-than-average films:
Taza
,
Son of Chochise
,
Captain Lightfoot
,
Magnificent Obsession
, and
All That Heaven Allows
. The last two movies established him as a leading actor in
"women's" films. After a fine performance in George
Stevens's
Giant
, he made three additional films for Sirk, two of which,
Written on the Wind
and
The Tarnished Angels
, revealed a depth of character not previously evident in his films.

Hudson's third shift in career came when he was cast in a series of
light comedies, several opposite Doris Day. Although the films vary
greatly in quality, they afforded Hudson an opportunity to explore his
comedic talents. Michael Gordon's
Pillow Talk
, Robert Mulligan's
Come September
, Delbert Mann's
Lover Come Back
, Norman Jewison's
Send Me No Flowers
, Melvin Frank's
Strange Bedfellows
, and Gordon's
A Very Special Favor
culminated with Hudson's comic tour de force in Howard
Hawks's slapstick farce,
Man's Favorite Sport?
, in which Hudson gave a performance worthy of Cary Grant at his best.

From the mid-1960s Hudson appeared in a series of mediocre films including
Roger Vadim's
Pretty Maids All in a Row
, in which he played an aging lothario who degenerates from a life of sex
to violent crime among a bevy of nubile high school girls. He reunited
with his
Giant
co-star Elizabeth Taylor for
The Mirror Crack'd
, a big-budget adaptation of an Agatha Christie Miss Marple novel (Angela
Lansbury played Miss Marple), an engaging murder mystery that hinted at a
career upswing. He also had a major role in the compelling, critically
acclaimed 1982 telefilm
World War III
.

Hudson made his last screen appearance in the 1984 telefilm
The Las Vegas Strip Wars
. A year later, while on a trip to Paris seeking medical treatment for an
"unstated" illness, Hudson collapsed and the story broke
that the actor had been diagnosed with AIDS. And the secret was finally
out: the longtime romantic idol of the silver screen was gay. Hudson, his
managers, and the studios for which he worked had successfully skirted the
rumors of Hudson's homosexuality for years. Hudson believed his
career as a leading man would be finished if the truth ever got out. The
revelation he had sought to avoid for years made headlines everywhere
after his diagnosis, but it resulted in an outpouring of sympathy and good
wishes, rather than scorn, from his many fans in virtually every corner of
the globe. His last public appearance at a benefit hosted by former
leading lady Doris Day revealed the awful truth of AIDS to the world in
vivid and uncompromising terms, Hudson's once strapping figure and
handsome face now ravaged almost beyond recognition by the insidious
virus. Five years after Hudson's death of AIDS, his secret life and
public career became the subject of an inevitable television docudrama,
with Thomas Ian Griffith starring as Hudson.

—Charles L. P. Silet, updated by John McCarty

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